Sarah Palin And GOP Favor Gun Rights For Terrorists To Open Carry, Just Like Jesus Said

Posted by Mark NC on November 19, 2015 at 2:56 pm. 7 Comments :

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The time when the War on Christmas warms the cockles (whatever they are) of American patriots as they prepare to celebrate the release of another Sarah Palin book: Sweet Freedom: A Devotional. Palin’s latest butchering of the English language “invites you to draw strength and inspiration from 260 meditations based on guiding Biblical verses.”

One of the inspirational verses in the book is Luke 22:36, which says “But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” And from that Palin has constructed an interpretation that strains the bounds of reason. She spoke with Tom Sullivan of Fox News Radio and delivered her warped analysis of the scripture:

“In the New Testament, Luke:22. We’re talking about gun control. Jesus, I swear he was a proponent of open carry. Because he told his disciples, he said ‘You better arm yourselves. You better protect the innocent. You don’t rely on the authorities. You don’t rely on others peoples.’ He said ‘You carry your sword.’ He told his disciples ‘Before we go on our journey, if you have a cloak, if you have your purse, OK, go get ’em. But if you don’t have a sword with you…’ – which was their arms back then – ‘…then you sell your cloak and you go buy a sword. And you get out there and you defend the innocent and yourself. Let’s go.’ He was all for self-defense and the Second Amendment.”

Really? Then why on the next morning did he tell his disciples to cease any defense of him, saying that “all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Biblical scholars read this verse as Jesus merely advising the disciples to be prepared with necessary tools for the tasks of survival (i.e. hunting, and cutting cloth or building materials). That explains why after he told them to buy swords he replied that “It’s enough,” when they responded saying that they had two already. Certainly two swords would not have been enough to fight the officers who would come to arrest Jesus. But they would be plenty as parts of a tool collection.

What’s more, nowhere in the verse does it say that Jesus advocated using swords, or any weaponry, to “defend the innocent and yourself.” To the contrary, he preached against violence and favored passive resistance as in “turn the other cheek.” Palin’s interpretation sounds like Jesus was assembling an early incarnation of The Avengers to suit up and take on the evildoers of Jerusalem.

In an oddly significant juxtaposition to Palin’s mangling of the Bible, Fox News reported yesterday that terrorists have had nearly unfettered access to guns in America. Gretchen Carlson’s story quoted a study by the Government Accountability Office on the ability of people on the Terrorist Watch List to legally purchase guns:

“People on the Terrorist Watch List here in the U.S. – Who knew they were still legally able to buy guns? Look at this data from the Government Accountability Office going back to 2004. Suspected terrorists made more than 2,200 attempts to buy guns from U.S. dealers. More than 2,000 of them, or 91% were successful.”

Who knew? Well, actually many people knew. Even Fox News knew and reported on it many times. This has been an issue for gun safety advocates for years. There have been several attempts, going back to at least 2007, during the Bush administration, to pass legislation to close what has been called “The Terror Gap,” but they have always been met with fierce opposition from the NRA and Republicans in Congress.

One of those Republicans who has opposed the legislation is Texas representative Tony Dale. Ironically, Dale is now citing the ease with which guns are available as a reason to deny entry into the U.S., and Texas, by Syrian refugees. Dale is worried that among them will be terrorists who will be able to purchase guns thanks to the legislation that he voted for. And another opponent of closing the Terror Gap was the late Adam Gadahn (aka Azzam the American), an Al Qaeda operative who issued a directive to his comrades saying that…

“America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely, without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?”

It’s rather strange that Carlson would be so surprised that this is occurring when it is something that has received so much attention in the past. And her editorial take on the subject seems to be aligned with the gun safety advocates who are pushing for restrictions on gun purchases by those on the watch list. That would put her at odds with the rest of the Fox News team, the GOP, the NRA, and Sarah Palin. Which means, of course, that she is at odds with Jesus the Avenger. Uh oh.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The Republican Crisis Recycling Center: Syrian Refugee Edition

Posted by Mark NC on November 17, 2015 at 3:34 pm. 17 Comments :

In what is being described as the worst refugee crisis since World War II, the plight of displaced Syrians continues to be a daunting humanitarian problem that is putting pressure on nations around the world to find a compassionate solution.

The United States is among those nations, but it is battling opposition from within. Not surprisingly, it is the Republicans and other conservative politicians and pundits who are adamantly against allowing Syrian refugees safe harbor in America. So far, more than half of the state governors are on record as opposing resettlement of Syrians in their states, and all but one of them are Republicans. [Legal note: These constitutional fetishists are unaware that they do not have the authority to dictate immigration policy, which rests with the federal government]

The GOP’s arguments against welcoming these refugees are consistently based on the fear that terrorists will clandestinely slip in among the legitimate migrants. While there is very little evidence of that occurring, it remains the favored excuse of the refugee opponents. The typical refrain goes something like this:

We must immediately prohibit those people from entering the United States.
Those being let in will include terrorists.
If our leaders won’t protect us they should resign.
It’s not our problem. Let others in their own region deal with it.
We can’t be humanitarians. We have to protect ourselves first.

Oh, sorry. Those were actually the reasons that Republican politicians and pundits opposed letting people from West Africa into the country last year during the Ebola outbreak. The degree of hysteria expressed by the wingnut contingency at that time was deafening. For their trouble they earned PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” award for 2014. It was a well-deserved tribute to their deranged insistence that Americans were going to be infected by the millions, and those who were fortunate enough to avoid the disease would be slaughtered by terrorists. Some of these fear mongers, like Glenn Beck and Fox News’ Keith Ablow, accused Obama of deliberately orchestrating this mass extinction of the U.S. population.

And while we’re on the subject, those were also the very same excuses the rightists gave for opposing the resettlement of Latino children. When thousands of kids were stranded in the Southwest they were treated like a plague and accused of being disease carriers, or having associations with drug traffickers or terrorists.

Let’s just call it the “Republican Crisis Recycling Center” where they repurpose their standard complaints to fit whatever outrage they are currently trying to push.

This might be a good time to point out there were never any outbreaks of Ebola in the U.S., nor did any of the kids who were eventually placed in foster homes blow up any pizza parlors. The irrational hysteria of the rightist fear merchants never materialized as they predicted (hoped?). And all of the available evidence points to the same results if we welcome the Syrian refugees in to America. There are, in fact, already some 2,000 Syrian refugees who have resettled here since 2011, and in four years they have done nothing but try to put their tattered lives back together.

Donald Trump was among those who exploited the Ebola crisis and charged that infected persons would be pouring across our southern border. Now he is doing the same to Syrians who he is convinced are serving as a “Trojan Horse” for terrorists. His plan is to acquire a parcel of land in Syria and make it a “safe zone” for the refugees. All 4,000,000 of them? It would have to be a city the size of Los Angeles. And no matter how good a builder he fancies himself, he isn’t going to construct such a metropolis overnight. These people need housing and food and medicine and all the other necessities of life, not a tents in the desert.

Sadly, that’s the sort of dumbfounded thinking (with an emphasis on the dumb) that dominates the Republican mindset. Another example is Mike Huckabee’s suggestion to only allow Christian refugees in. President Obama called that religious test “shameful.” How he would differentiate the Christians from the Muslims and others, he did not say. I suppose he could tattoo a number on all the Muslims to identify them for rejection. Then he can help Trump load 11,000,000 Latinos into train cars to deport them to “safe zones” in Central America for his reprise of Operation Wetback.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

What the right seems to forget is that these refugees are fleeing the same violence and terrorism that we are fighting in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. They also seem to forget the values embodied in their faith that calls for compassion, service, and brotherhood. And finally, they quite easily forget the example of America’s principles expressed by the gift from France that beckons to the world…

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore; send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

[Addendum:] Jesse Watters of Fox News managed to connect the refugee crisis with the Ebola outbreak. On The Five he said “Obama has imported dangerous things into this country since he got there. He’s imported socialism here, He’s imported Ebola into America. He’s imported illegal aliens. Remember he brought all of the Ebola victims into this country?” All of them? This is the sort of idiocy that permeates the racist right-wing ideology on issues that go far beyond the current problem with refugees.

The Wingnut Reverse Beetlejuice Doctrine: Say ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’ Three Times

Posted by Mark NC on November 15, 2015 at 2:18 pm. 14 Comments :

The warped philosophy of conservatives in America has long held that the primary reason for the persistence of terrorism is that President Obama and other Democrats are reluctant to utter the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” They somehow have concluded that those magical words are key to defeating groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS. And they wonder why we think they’re stupid.

Following the Democratic Debate in Iowa on Saturday, the call to cast the magic spell was once again made the centerpiece of rightist criticisms. GOP candidates, and right-wing pundits on Fox News and elsewhere, have uniformly adopted the fabled “Reverse Beetlejuice Doctrine” wherein you shout “radical Islamic terrorism” three times and ISIS disappears. Actually, it isn’t even required to shout it. You can just tweet it. For example:

Donald Trump: Why won’t President Obama use the term Islamic Terrorism? Isn’t it now, after all of this time and so much death, about time!
Jeb Bush: Yes, we are at war with radical Islamic terrorism. #DemDebate
Ted Cruz: We need a President who is unafraid to name our enemy — radical Islamic terrorism — and will set out to defeat it.
Rick Santorum: Yes, @HillaryClinton we are at war with radical Islam! You are not qualified to serve if you cannot even define our enemy! #DemDebate
Mike Huckabee: You’re all grown up now. You can do it. Three words. Ten syllables. Say it with me: “Radical Islamic terrorism.” #DemDebate
Carly Fiorina: We need a President who will see and speak and act on the truth…Hillary Clinton will not call this Islamic terrorism. I will.
RNC (Republican National Committee: Hillary refuses to say we are at war with “radical Islam.” #DemDebate
Todd Starnes (Fox News): If your #DemDebate drinking game words are “Radical Islam” — you’ll be going home cold sober tonight, folks.
Eric Bolling (Fox News): Just so all you vapid @HillaryClinton supporters know. She just said “we are not at war with radical Islam”. #parisisburning
Donald Trump (again): When will President Obama issue the words RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM? He can’t say it, and unless he will, the problem will not be solved!

In addition to these individuals, conservative media is singing from the same hymnal. National Review, Breitbart News, Washington Times, Free Beacon, and the Daily Caller are among those in the choir. It’s clearly an obsession with these folks. They are convinced that babbling a few specific words is a better indicator of the determination to fight terrorists than actually fighting terrorists. So even though Obama ordered the successful assassination of Osama Bin Laden, and as Commander-in-Chief presided over the killing of thousands of terrorist operatives, including many of their leaders, he can’t possibly be serious about the mission until he recites the approved scriptural incantation.

For the record, just this week under the leadership of President Obama, missions were carried out that are believed to have resulted in the deaths of the ISIS chief in Libya and the infamous ISIS executioner known as Jihadi John. And all without invoking the magic spell.

At Fox News they are engaging in their standard game plan of distorting reality in a way that twists it to their far-right biases. Ed Henry, their senior White House correspondent, in a post-debate report told Sean Hannity that “At one point [Hillary Clinton] said ‘I do not believe we’re at war with radical Islam.’ The reaction to that online and overnight will be very interesting.”

Of course the most interesting part of that is that it is not what she said. What she said was “I don’t think we’re at war with Islam. I don’t think we’re at war with all Muslims. I think we’re at war with jihadists.” Nevertheless, Henry’s bastardization of her remarks is what will stick in the already gooey minds of Fox viewers. The cult simply will not permit free thought based on verifiable facts.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

There are numerous reasons for declining to fall into the “radical Islamic terrorist” trap. News Corpse spelled them out early this year in some detail. The gist is that we have legitimate concerns regarding our ability to form coalitions with the Muslim nations in the Middle-East whose cooperation is required to prevail against ISIS. That is not helped by demeaning their faith. But it’s more than that. By accepting the terms and definitions of the terrorists, Republicans, Fox News, et al, are acting as the PR department for the terrorists who desperately aspire to be regarded as the legitimate voice of Islam. Why are they insisting on granting the terrorists that victory?

And here’s some perspective from Muslims on the anti-Islam extremists who pretend to be Muslim.

Pres. Obama: This Is An Attack On All Of Humanity. Rupert Murdoch: Nuh Uh

Posted by Mark NC on November 14, 2015 at 3:45 pm. 5 Comments :

The world watches stunned as yet another horrific act of terrorism is carried out that senselessly takes the lives of innocent people. The city of Paris is in shock as it struggles to recover and to understand the nature of a lethal and elusory enemy. And decent people worldwide are united in sympathy, concern, and determination to prevail over evil.

President Obama expressed the condolences of the American people in statement (video below) that was heartfelt while recognizing the difficulties of the tasks that lie ahead. He said that “This is an attack not just on Paris, it’s an attack not just on the people of France, but this is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share.”

The truth of that statement is reflected in the nearly unanimous agreement from national leaders around the world such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said that this “Attack on freedom was not only meant for Paris, it is against all of us.” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Jaber Ansari condemned attacks saying that “Those terrorist groups that committed the Paris crimes do not believe in ethical principles and they are not loyal to any type of divine religions — including Islam.”

There was, however, a notable exception. Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and Chairman of the parent corporation of Fox News, explicitly contradicted the President and others in a tweet saying that the “Paris outrage not an attack on all humanity, but an attack on us. ie, Western civilisation!”

What a despicable expression of egocentric, supremacist bullcrap. Murdoch’s insistence that terrorism is not a plague on all the nations of the world exposes his rancid bigotry and ignorance. It is self-centered and delusional to suggest that the only targets of terrorism are people like himself. He is apparently unaware that the most frequent victims by far of radical Islamists are other Muslims. Why does he think there are currently some three million refugees from Syria flowing into neighboring countries? They are peaceful and frightened people fleeing the barbarism of ISIS that has taken the lives of so many of their friends, families, and fellow citizens.

These people know the horror and heartbreak of terrorism far better than Murdoch does from the comfort and safety of his penthouse. Yet he callously dismisses them as not being the targets of terror. His assertion that Westerners are the only victims, that it isn’t an attack on humanity, may be because he doesn’t regard them as human. And choosing this time to excrete his vile prejudices, while the blood of Parisians, including very likely the blood of innocent Muslims, is still staining the streets of Paris, could not be more repulsive.

It is so sad that such a blatant bigot controls one of largest media empires in the world and that it so closely mirrors his hate mongering. Murdoch was a fervent proponent of, and propagandist for, the war in Iraq that destabilized the region and allowed groups like ISIS to flourish. And now he belittles the suffering of the people most devastated by the chaos and brutality for which his efforts were a major contributing factor.

Murdoch could not be more wrong. What happened in Paris was most definitely an attack on all of humanity. Murdoch just doesn’t have enough of it to know that.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

[Addendum:] One of Murdoch’s favorite guests on Fox News, Milwaukee’s wingnut Sheriff David Clarke, tweeted his response to the Paris attacks: “If GOP plays this politically smart they can end any chance that the Dems win the WH in 2016. War is politics carried on by other means.” It’s bad enough that he is brazenly politicizing this tragedy while the bodies are still warm, but he’s also implying that the objectives of the terrorists are aligned with those of the Republican Party. In effect, he’s looking at “the bright side” of this horror for his political pals. How sick is that?

Watch John Oliver Bust Fox News For Falsifying Refugee Video

Posted by Mark NC on September 28, 2015 at 4:00 pm. 5 Comments :

For several weeks Fox News has been trying to stir up irrational fears among their xenophobic audience over the plight of refugees fleeing war and economic hardship in Syria and Iraq. To that end they have mounted a relentless campaign to slander the refugees as terrorists seeking to infiltrate Europe and the U.S. This propaganda blitz is based on nothing but invented tales of horror and racist speculation. But apparently those attempts to deceive their pre-rattled viewers were not sufficiently frightening.

Consequently, Fox News had to manufacture “evidence” of the doom that awaits any nation that shows empathy for the suffering refugees. So they enhanced their fictional narrative with video that was completely unrelated to the story. Of course, they’ve been caught doing that before. What makes it surprising this time is that it was revealed by John Oliver in an enlightening and hilarious episode of his HBO program “Last Week Tonight:” From the segment (video below):

Kristin Fisher: A new video has surfaced online showing why some are worried that Europe is opening its doors to potential terrorists. Those are reportedly Muslim refugees on a train in Europe chanting “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.” Now to be clear, we’re not saying that any of those people are terrorists or in any way affiliated with a terror group. But it does highlight just how many of these refugees who are fleeing violence in Iraq and Syria are Muslim.
John Oliver: OK, first, you don’t get to claim that you’re not calling those people terrorists when your lower third says “Terrorists Inbound.” [It later changed to “Terrifying Chant”] If you are really not saying that they’re terrorists, maybe change it to something more accurate like “People Take Train.”

But it was what Oliver noticed next that hammered another nail into Fox’s already tattered journalistic credibility. Comically understating the situation, Oliver reported that the video Fox News ran was “a little misleading.” It turns out that the video Fox said was “new” had actually been uploaded to YouTube in July of 2010, long before there was any refugee crisis in Syria. What’s more, Fisher’s report aired on the September 9th broadcast of Fox & Friends, one day after the five year old video had been dredged up by conspiracy kook Alex Jones for his Infowars website.

So to recap: It wasn’t new; there was no indication that they were terrorists; nor was there any indication that these Muslims on a train in Paris were even refugees; the video didn’t just “surface” online, it was the conspiracy fodder of Alex Jones; and the only people worried about it are Fox News and the dimwits who watch it. And finally, this fake story must be publicly acknowledged by Fox News. They must recant and apologize for deceiving viewers. But unless you’re into asphyxiophilia I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for Fox to do so.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Little Monsters: Fear Mongers At Fox News Demonize Innocent Child Refugees

Posted by Mark NC on September 12, 2015 at 4:45 pm. 5 Comments :

It must be exhausting for the punditry and viewers of Fox News to be on a perpetually heightened state of alert in a world where they are convinced that horrors stalk them constantly. It seems that every day they awake to a new catastrophe that sends them diving under their heavily fortified beds where they store their survival gear, gold coins, and assault weapons. This inbred fear has been triggered by everything from health care to immigration to the threat of a foreign-born, Muslim socialist with a scary name invading the White House.

Now the folks at Fox’s Fox Nation website are trembling over what they are characterizing as fledgling terrorists in the form of children taken in as refugees by Germany. The Fox Nationalists proclaimed that this is actually a plot by “Islamists In Germany Trying To Recruit Young Refugees.”

Just look at them. They’re ghastly. The bone-chilling story that Fox cites as proof of this fiendish scheme is an article on Yahoo News from the Agence France-Presse wire service. The article contains reports that “Muslim radicals in Germany are trying to recruit some of the growing numbers of asylum seekers” from Syria. The wrinkle that Fox adds is a photograph of smiling children with cuddly stuffed toys arriving at the train station in Munich. Fox is plainly implying that kids like these will soon be at your local mall with pressure-cooker bombs. The photo is from the Associated Press, was not in the source article and had nothing to do with it. The article spoke only of young refugees, a common target for radical recruiting, but never mentioned children. The only conceivable purpose for inserting this photo into the Fox Nation story was to demonize innocent children as potential future terrorists.

This is all part of a larger Fox News campaign to frighten their easily spooked viewers into rejecting any proposal to bring some of the suffering Syrian refugees to the U.S. For the last week Fox has been airing segments that allege that the refugees have been infiltrated by terrorists and that allowing them into the country would result in certain death. Apparently Fox is OK, however, with refugee children dying and being washed ashore, which they will subsequently blame on Obama.

The Fox Fear Festival also featured rewritten histories of the 9/11 attacks. In an attempt to send shivers up the spines of their already quivering audience, Fox’s Neil Cavuto hosted Michael Pregent of Veterans Against the Deal (VAD), a shadowy organization that unsuccessfully tried to stop the nuclear agreement with Iran. VAD has a multi-million dollar budget whose funding sources are unknown but, not surprisingly, a member of their board, Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, runs another astroturf vets group (Concerned Veterans for America ) that is bankrolled by the Koch brothers.

Cavuto began the segment by falsely pandering to professional 9/11 alarmists by saying that “We are helping the very folks that may have had a hand in 9/11.” Of course, there is no evidence that Iran had anything to do with 9/11. However, that is exactly the same manufactured argument that the Bush regime used to justify war with Iraq. It is all about increasing the scare quotient and aiming it at a vulnerable enemy. And to make sure the fear sticks, Cavuto made it overtly political. He asserted that the deal was a product of partisan Democrats who had orchestrated a process that Cavuto called “kinda weird.”

Cavuto: They set up this Byzantine parliamentary process by which you needed two-thirds majority and all this other stuff and cloture votes and stuff that’s way over my head, which is not hard to do.

First of all, there is nothing remotely Byzantine, or even unusual, about the parliamentary process used in this vote. Republicans needed to get a filibuster-proof majority to prevail. That’s something with which they should be familiar considering that when they were in the minority they conducted more filibusters than any session of Congress in history. Secondly, Cavuto should know that the threshold to invoke cloture to end a filibuster is only three-fifths, not two-thirds. Finally, his reference to “all this other stuff” is just nonsense. What other stuff?

Having gotten so much wrong it would be easy to believe him when he says this is way over his head, except for the fact that he is obviously lying in order to make it all sound more confusing and sinister. And his accusation of partisanship is really better suited for Republicans, After all, Democrats voted both for and against the Iran deal. It is Republicans who voted lock-step against it in a show of pure partisanship.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

In the end, the message here is to fear Democrats, fear Iran, and fear little kids escaping from Syrian turmoil, oppression and death. In short, be afraid. Afraid of everything. All the time. And thank goodness there is Fox News around to make sure that you are.

Fox News Headline: That Drowned Syrian Boy On The Beach Is Obama’s Fault

Posted by Mark NC on September 4, 2015 at 4:34 pm. 10 Comments :

The list of things that are Obama’s fault just keeps getting longer. You have to wonder how he has managed to get so much done in so short a time. After all, conservatives have blamed Obama for everything from riots in Ferguson, MO, to California’s drought, to Ebola, to Hurricane Katrina (No, really). And that happened three years before he was inaugurated. He is to blame for high gas prices that hurt consumers, as well as for low gas prices that hurt oil companies. They blame him for increased immigration (which has actually gone down), and for the rising number of abortions (which are declining).

It really doesn’t matter what the subject is. Conservatives will spin it as evidence of America’s doom and blame Obama for it. And if you need another example, look no further than Fox News, where today they ran a story with the headline “That Drowned Syrian Boy On The Beach Is Obama’s Fault.” Because, of course it is.

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson is the one assigning the blame on this occasion. He has to stretch mightily to justify his ludicrous opinion that the responsibility for the death of a child refugee from Syria rests on the President’s shoulders. He does this by twisting the facts beyond all recognition and inventing motives that aren’t supported by reality. The sad story began when the boy’s family, along with thousands of others, fled the oppression and atrocities perpetrated by ISIS in Syria. Erickson viewed that situation as the “direct result” of Obama’s alleged pride and cowardice.

Erickson: “ISIS only became a thing when the White House, out of pride and arrogance, decided it was better to placate the left by withdrawing all troops from Iraq rather than help the Iraqis maintain their stability.

“A young boy has died, washed up on the shores of Europe. His picture has shocked the world and his death is direct result of Barack Obama fleeing the Middle East, tail tucked between his leg, so he could pridefully say he ended a war he never wanted.

“The boy is dead because Barack Obama chose to abdicate American leadership in the world.”

Apparently Erickson either doesn’t know, or is deliberately lying, about the circumstances that led to the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The truth is that a “Status of Forces Agreement” was negotiated by the administration of George W. Bush that called for complete withdrawal by the end of 2011. The Obama administration attempted to extend the agreement, but the Iraqis were opposed to any extension so Bush’s deadline was carried out.

Since the withdrawal date was not chosen by Obama, it can hardly be attributed to him as placating the left or resulting from his pride and arrogance. He didn’t “flee” the Middle East. He complied with the binding agreement of his White House predecessor. If Erickson is looking for someone to accuse of abdicating leadership, then he should be looking at Bush.

Furthermore, Erickson’s insinuation that Obama was responsible for the rise of ISIS is just as faulty as his understanding of international treaties. Many of the soldiers who formed ISIS were former officials and military operatives of Saddam Hussein’s Bath Party. They were only available to start their radical Islamic army because Bush’s operatives in Iraq prohibited them from having any role in the new Iraqi government. That move turned them into rebels who eventually aligned with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Erickson argued that the destabilization of Iraq that led to much of the region’s turmoil was Obama’s fault, even though one of the reasons that Obama had opposed the Iraq war from the start was the risk of destabilization. So Erickson was wrong about Iraq. He was wrong about the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. He was wrong about the beginnings of ISIS. He also failed to note that the dead child was not from Iraq, but was a refugee from Syria, where they were having problems of their own.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Nevertheless, Erickson flatly stated that “That little boy would not have died had Barack Obama stood strong in Iraq. […] That dead child is Barack Obama’s fault.” But that opinion is so much more than merely wrong. It is contrary to the facts. It is slander against Obama. It is absolution to ISIS, the real perpetrators of so much death and misery. And it is perversely exploitative of a tragic loss of innocent life. However, it is exactly the sort of despicable smear campaign that Erickson, and his comrades on the right, and Fox News, have been engaging in for at least the last seven years.

Wingnut West Point Prof Calls For Military Attacks On Media, Lawyers, And Teachers

Posted by Mark NC on August 30, 2015 at 11:12 pm. 3 Comments :

The Conservative Society of Slobbering War Mongers has a new hero today in the form of freshly minted West Point Academy professor. William Bradford has been with the academy less than a month and has already embarrassed it profusely.

As reported in The Guardian, Bradford is arguing for the deliberate destruction of Islamic holy sites, without regard for civilian “collateral” damage, in a campaign that would mirror the mindless brutality of ISIS. But his sadistic savagery doesn’t stop there. He also accuses critics of the war on terrorism of being a treasonous “fifth column” who are subject to attack as if they were the same as any other enemy combatants. Those critics include “law school facilities, scholars’ home offices and media outlets where they give interviews.” Bradford characterized legal scholars as a…

“…super-weapon that supports Islamist military operations” aimed at “American political will” to fight. They are supported by “compliant journalists” marked by “defeatism, instinctive antipathy to war, and empathy for American adversaries”

So Bradford believes that having dissenting views, particularly those aimed at peaceful resolutions to international conflict, are tantamount to treason. He believes, therefore, that American academics and lawyers who have views that differ from the Masters of War can lawfully be terminated in their homes and offices by military bombing raids. And their accomplices in the media who exercise the constitutionally protected freedom of the press are equally at risk for the same deadly fate. This is a view so perverse that Bradford’s superiors at West Point are already distancing themselves from his bloodthirsty lunacy saying that…

“The views in the article are solely those of Dr Bradford and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense, the United States army, the United States Military Academy.”

Furthermore, the National Security Law Journal where Bradford’s tirade was published is now calling it a “mistake” and an “egregious breach of professional decorum,” along with this apology that was posted on their website:

“We cannot ‘unpublish’ it, of course, but we can and do acknowledge that the article was not presentable for publication when we published it, and that we therefore repudiate it with sincere apologies to our readers.”

It is surprising that this slimeball would be employed at West Point in any capacity. Particularly after discovering that he lied about his previous employment as an associate professor at the National Defense University (which NDU denies). Even worse, he was caught stealing the honor of legitimate veterans by claiming to have served in Iraq during Desert Storm and being awarded a Silver Star. None of which is true.

A far better place of employment for him would be Fox News where he could join the reprehensible Lt. Col. Ralph Peters as a strategic analyst and contributor. Peters has long held that the killing of non-combatants, women, children, allies. and even our own troops, was justifiable in war. He believed that the U.S. would be irresponsible if it did not adopt the tactics of our enemies, atrocities and all. And his barbaric philosophy also included support for military attacks on the media saying…

“…the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar. […] Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”

Bradford and Peters share the same noxious disregard for humanity. Their open indifference to murdering the innocent, and especially their fellow Americans who happen to be lawyers, educators, and journalists, ought to be sufficient to banish them to the fringes of society with the rest of the depraved vermin who lust for another holocaust. They certainly should not be teaching at West Point or bloviating on television.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Hostile Pastor On Fox News Says Charleston Church Massacre Due To “Rising Hostility Against Christians”

Posted by Mark NC on June 18, 2015 at 2:30 pm. 6 Comments :

Last night there was another of the sort of tragedies that are becoming painfully common in modern America. The Emanuel AME Church, an historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, was attacked by an openly racist gunman who managed to take the lives of nine innocent people before fleeing into the night. This morning police in North Carolina apprehended Dylann Storm Roof, the alleged perpetrator.

Despite the readily available facts from police and witnesses, Fox News immediately went into a defensive posture to mitigate any speculation that race might have been the motive in the crime. The general editorial viewpoint of Fox News is that racism ceased to exist when President Obama was elected. Never mind that his election brought out the racists at Fox who questioned his birth, his faith, his patriotism, and accused him of deliberately inciting racial violence and riots.

Fox News has also been a critic of studies that show that America is far more at risk due to threats from right-wing, domestic terrorists than from foreign extremist Islamic groups like ISIS. Just the mention of such studies brings outrage from offended rightists who are desperate to avoid seeing the truth. However, the incident in Charleston affirms the studies and reinforces that fact that there have been many assaults perpetrated by rightist individuals and groups, but not a single successful attack by ISIS. Yet which of these does Fox News work so hard to make people fear?

The Charlston whitewash began with the first Fox News program in the morning, Fox & Friends, where they hosted wingnut pastor E.W. Jackson to ~~discuss~~ distort the story. Jackson was introduced by Steve Doocy who was taken aback because “extraordinarily, they called it a hate crime.” Doocy didn’t bother to explain just what he thought was extraordinary about it, but Jackson went into some further detail:

“We’re urging people to wait for the facts. Don’t jump to conclusions. But I have to tell you that I’m deeply concerned that this gunman chose to go into a church, because there does seem to be a rising hostility against Christians across this country because of our biblical views. And I just think that it’s something we have to be aware of and not create an atmosphere where people take out their violent intentions against Christians.”

So after cautioning everyone not to jump to conclusions, Jackson leaped ahead to suggest the utterly improbable notion that a white man firing randomly into a congregation of black parishioners was actually an assault based on religion and not race. He propounded this theory even though there were already reports that the shooter had announced his his racist purpose before he began shooting, saying that he was there “to shoot black people.”

Of course, the Curvy Couch Potatoes readily agreed with Jackson and commended him on making a good point. But if this weren’t bad enough, Jackson continued to interject something else that was on his mind:

“And I would mention one other thing very quickly, and that is I would urge pastors and men in these churches to prepare to defend themselves. It’s sad, but I think that we’ve got to arm ourselves.”

No one should be surprised that Fox News would seek to advance their pro-gun agenda after another mass murder by another crazed gunman. It’s what they did after the massacres at Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colorado, and elsewhere. Shilling for NRA-theists is an inbred trait at Fox News. However, it is disturbing that in this case they chose Jackson as their mouthpiece since he has a history of advocating an avowedly militant philosophy. Earlier this year he spoke at the National Press Club to denounce marriage equality. He declared that gay marriage was contrary to God’s plan and pledged that Christians “will give our lives standing for the truth.”

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Considering the hostility that Jackson and his peers have for those with whom they disagree, and his determination to fight to the death against what he considers sinful, it would be inviting tragedy to put guns in the hands of people like him. He’s already aching for a war and he believes that he and other Christians are the oppressed victims who are justified in taking up arms. Talk about a recipe for disaster.

Ignored By Fox News: Christian Terrorist Pleads Guilty In Plot To Massacre American Muslims

Posted by Mark NC on May 19, 2015 at 8:07 pm. 10 Comments :

Whenever there is an act of terrorism that conservatives can attribute to Muslims, they jump at the chance to condemn the entire Islamic faith as inherently violent. And at the same time, they advance their ingrained superiority by asserting that only Muslims would ever engage in such behavior. They insist that Christians would never resort to violence in response to a perceived insult or political disagreement.

Never mind the ample evidence of Christian attacks on those with whom they disagree, including the murder of Dr. Tiller, the Atlanta Olympic bombing, the extremist in Norway who murdered dozens of children, or the tragedy in Oklahoma City that killed 168 innocent people. The Christian defenders simply don’t see what they don’t want to see. Although, to some extent they also don’t see what is deliberately kept from them. That’s because Fox needs to reinforce the racist theme that all terrorists are dark-skinned foreigners.

The media often fails to publicize acts of Christian terrorism in the manner they do with Muslims. An example of that occurred this week when court records were revealed describing Robert Doggart, an ordained minister in the Christian National Church, who pleaded guilty to plotting a massacre of the citizens of an upstate New York community of Muslims known as Islamberg. The records showed a detailed plan to kill people and destroy buildings, churches and schools. Doggart was quoted as saying “We will offer [our] lives as collateral to prove our commitment to our God.” In other words, it was a suicide mission not unlike those committed by Islamic extremists, and for the same reason.

In keeping with the right-wing media determination to insure that their audience remains biased and ignorant, the Fox News Channel failed to report the story. This failure is all the more egregious considering the complicity that Fox News has in Doggart’s scheme.

Doggart, who was working with right-wing militias that share his view that President Obama was guilty of treason, told the FBI in his confession that he “justified his attack on lslamberg by claiming that the residents of Islamberg were planning a terrorist attack.” And where did he get this groundless notion? In January Bill O’Reilly hosted, Ryan Mauro, a “national security analyst” who claimed that Muslims were forming “no-go zones” in the United States where they would train and launch domestic attacks. These claims were never substantiated by credible sources in law enforcement, and the organizations to which Mauro belonged were well known anti-Islamic propagandists.

That didn’t stop Fox News from inviting Mauro back numerous times to spread his false and inflammatory smears. It is that sort of disinformation that gives Doggart, and so many other Fox News viewers, the wrong impression of Islam along with an unwarranted fear of peaceful fellow citizens. It is the same sort of dishonest “journalism” that prevents Fox News, and other conservative media outlets, from reporting the other side of the terrorism story that reveals the criminal activities of Christian extremists like Doggart.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News has a long history of fear mongering about Muslims while neglecting news stories involving right-wing extremists. A couple of years ago another Christian terrorist was arrested – and ignored by Fox. Earlier this year Fox became hysterical about a study produced by the Department of Homeland Security that warned of right-wing domestic terrorists. They believed that this demonstrated the government’s anti-conservative bias. What they never told their viewers was that a similar study had also been produced previously that addressed the same sort of threats from radical left-wingers.

That’s the sort of deceptive biases that Fox engages in routinely. And it’s why people like Doggart become radicalized on behalf of insane conspiracy theories. Should any of the crackpots who buy into this nonsense succeed in carrying out one of their plots, Fox News should share in the responsibility for the damage done.

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